Never Say You're Sorry
by ardavenport
Summary: Hellboy tries to use sorcery to fix the cable TV. And gets some unexpected guests for his trouble. Hellboy, Star Wars Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan , Merlin, Coneheads.


**NEVER SAY YOU'RE SORRY**

by ardavenport

* * *

"Aaaaaaauurrghhch-naaauusch-kuuuuurrrrahhh."

The nine-pointed star amulet hung inert on it's chain. The geometric pattern on it glinted silver and gold, positioned in the center of the TV screen.

"Oh, give it up, Red. It's not going to work."

"Sssssshhhhhh. I think I felt something that time. I've almost got it."

Liz Sherman fell back onto the pillow. The bed was a mess. Strewn with her clothes. His clothes. A couple plates. Quite a lot of crumbs. Some unidentifiable stains. And cats. Licking their lips, their wide green and yellow eyes looking back and forth between the couple and waiting for something interesting to happen.

Reaching over to the night stand, Liz managed to liberate her coke without dislodging the ash tray, the bowl of chips, lamp, magazines and empty beer cans. While she sipped, her boyfriend persisted with his current project.

"Aaaaaaauurrghhaaassshchiii-NAAAaauusch-KUUUUuurrrrahhh."

The amulet remained inert. The TV screen dark.

"Red," she moaned, "it's not going to work. Just apologize to Manning." She put the paper cup back on the stand. A magazine slithered down to the floor. This was the bachelor pad from Hell.

No, it was the bachelor pad of Hellboy.

His tail twitching, he turned back to her, a snarl on his heavy-jawed red face.

"I'm not apologizing to Manning," he snarled before turning back to the amulet. Liz lay watching him go at it. At least the view was good. As fantastic as Hellboy looked without a shirt, his massive biceps and six-boulder abs showing, he looked even better with his lower half exposed, too.

"AAAAAauurrghhaaassshch-ouggghhhh-naaaaUUUSch-KUUUUuurrrrahhh."

A cat stalked up her side, looking for a warmer spot. Liz scratched the feline behind the ears and she leaned into it, purring.

"Red, you can't get the cable back with magic. Just tell Manning you're sorry and you won't do it again and he'll turn it back on again," she told her stubborn boyfriend about Manning's punishment. He stopped muttering his incantation to turn back to her again.

"Why should I apologize? I didn't do anything wrong," he denied.

"There were people in that park, Red."

"I wanted some ice cream."

"You cut in line."

"They let me in. They could see I was in a hurry."

Liz looked ceiling-ward in exasperation. "They were cowering. And you didn't pay for the ice creams."

"The guy gave them to me."

"Because he was terrified."

"Why?" Hellboy asked, clearly not understanding. "I got rid of the giant snake. And you didn't say anything about it then after I gave you one."

"After you ate the first fifteen of them," Liz grumbled about the ice creams, but Hellboy had already turned back to the TV and the amulet.

"AauuUURRRRghhaaassshch-OOOUUUggghhhh-naaaauuschi-KUUUUuurrrrahhh."

The cat started kneading the bedding next to Liz.

"AaaaUURRRRghhaaassshchi-OOOUUUggghhhh-naaaauuschi-KUUUUuurrrrahhh."

"AAAAUURRRRghhaaassshchi-ooouuuggghhhh-NAAAAaauuschi-KUUUUuurrrrahhh."

An eerie electronic blue dot appeared in the center of the amulet. Hellboy triumphantly stepped back. Liz sat up, dislodging the cat which vanished with the others under the bed. Then she hastily threw a sheet over herself.

The glow grew to the size of a quarter, then a saucer, then a plate. It winked and fluttered like static. Liz flinched back when it suddenly flared into a blazing blue sun and then went out.

The strong scent of ozone joined the pervasive smell of cigars, cat pee and stale junk food in the room.

Two people stood before the television set.

"Hey? What are you two doing here?" Hellboy demanded, obviously disappointed with the result of his incantation.

Liz couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Two men. Both wearing long brown robes, belts and boots. One older, long hair, beard, as tall as Hellboy. The other average height, young, fresh-faced, short hair and a long thin braid hanging from behind one ear. They looked like Jedi Knights. They WERE Jedi Knights.

Right out of [i]Star Wars[/i].

"What did you do???" Liz demanded, climbing up out of bed and clutching the sheet around her body.

The two Jedi stared. At Hellboy.

Liz bent down and grabbed a large pair of black leather pants from the debris on the floor.

"Put some pants on, Red!" she commanded, throwing them in his direction.

"Huh?" he asked, catching the clothing. Then, grumbling, he put them on, covering up the more astonishing and intimidating parts of his anatomy.

Their guests had assumed fighting crouches as soon as they appeared, lightsabers in their hands, but they had not turned them on. Now they stood warily at ease, looking around. At them. At the TV set and the amulet behind them. At the room, the clutter, shelves, lights and other TV screens on the other side of the room.

"Red. . . . " Liz said between clinched teeth, moving to stand by him.

"I guess that wasn't such a great idea," Hellboy admitted. "Uh, hey," he addressed the two Jedi. "I guess you're wondering what you're doing here."

"I assume we were brought here by you. For some reason," the older one said, his tone serious and somewhat European. "I am Qui-Gon Jinn - - - "

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know who you are." Hellboy waved the introduction away with his oversized stone right hand. "You're Obi-Wan Kenobi and you're. . . . that other guy."

The younger Jedi stared back in open-mouthed surprise. Qui-Gon Jinn raised his eyebrows.

"We are known to you?" Jinn said with surprise.

"Yeah, yeah. Look this is all a big mistake. I was just trying to fix something else. And I kinda go you two by mistake."

"Red, what are we going to do with them?" Liz asked, wrapping the sheet more securely around herself.

"We're going to send them back," Hellboy told her.

"How?"

"Weeeeeee'lllllll. . . . . " The word dragged out. "We'll use the amulet again. And send them back that way," he finished with obviously false certainty.

"You don't know how you brought them here. How are you going to send them back? You were trying to fix the cable." she demanded. In her side vision, she saw the two Jedi watching them arguing and then looking at each other. At least they put their lightsabers back on their belts.

"I've got it under control," he insisted. "Now you two." He pointed with his ordinary, Human-proportioned left hand. "Move over there."

Two bemused Jedi Knights stepped aside, leaving a clear path for Hellboy to the TV set and the amulet hanging over it.

"AAAAUURRRRghhaauuussshchi-ooouuuggghhhh-NAAAAaauuschi-KUUUUuurrrrahhh."

Again, the electronic blue dot appeared and grew. The Jedi stepped back. Liz stepped back, yanking the sheet up from underfoot. The blue energy circle flashed brightly.

An astonished young man in a long, dark green shirt and leggings stood before the TV set.

"Oh. My. God," Liz pronounced.

"Hey," Hellboy complained, lowering the arm that was protecting his eyes, lifting his head and the enormous red circular horn stumps on his forehead. "Who are you?"

The newcomer's eyes flashed yellow.

Hellboy flew back as if pulled by a wire and crashed into the wall shelves. Video tapes, jars, cat food cans, kitty snacks and toys went flying and crashing to the floor.

"Hey!" Liz yelled, extending a flaming hand.

The young man backed up, bumping into the TV set. The Jedi lightsabers snapped with deadly hums.

"Hey!" Liz yelled. Her body now fully en-flamed, she turned toward the Jedi. One arm pointed at them, the other still held the sheet in place. Fortunately Hellboy's bed sheets were fire proof. "Everybody calm down."

All three newcomers stared back with blue eyes. And they all did have varying shades of blue eyes, Liz noticed. They also did not move.

"Calm!" Hellboy said loudly, picking himself up out of the wreckage. "What did he do? Hey, nobody pushes me around in my place kid," he warned, pointing his huge rock forefinger at the man in the long shirt. He was pale (probably paler than usual at the moment) with longish dark brown hair and he backed away from the angry red demon coming at him.

"It was just a little magic, Red. Calm down," she told her boyfriend.

"Magic," Hellboy sneered. "What kind of magic was that? I didn't see any magic except that eye thing."

"It's still magic. He's Merlin." Liz extinguished the flames around her body.

"Merlin?"

"You know me?" The young Merlin relaxed a little bit. At least he stopped backing away from her.

"Yeah, Red. Merlin. You know, Camelot. King Arthur?"

"What? He's not Merlin. Merlin's some old guy with a long white beard."

"KING Arthur???" Merlin exclaimed with equal amounts of shock and distaste.

"He's the new one."

Hellboy wrinkled his nose at the young man in the long shirt. "I don't like it."

"YOU don't like it?" Liz asked in frustration. "What are we going to do with these people?" She kicked a stray can of cat food out of the way.

"We're going to send them back. I almost had it right that time."

"ALMOST? You didn't almost do anything. We've got people coming out of the television set!"

"Fine. I suppose you want me to apologize to Manning for that, too."

"If you had apologized to Manning in the first place to get the cable back, we wouldn't have this problem now!"

Nearby, the Jedi looked at Merlin. Merlin looked at the Jedi. They all looked at the enormous red demon and the angry flammable woman arguing about cable and Manning and television set and other things that they did not understand.

"Just let me try to fix it. One. More. Time," Hellboy entreated, his mismatched hands held out to her. "We don't have anything better to try."

"Well. . . . . " Liz did not have anything better to suggest. And now they couldn't call Manning. The director of the FBI's Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense would just make things worse. And possible panic. And certainly yell at them.

"Let's give it one more shot," Hellboy encouraged, taking advantage of her indecision.

"All right." She stepped aside. He took a deep breath.

"AAAAUURRRRghhaauu - - - - hey where'd it go?"

Hellboy looked from the blank TV screen to the floor. His eyes tracked left and then up.

Qui-Gon Jinn tilted his head, the amulet in his hand.

"You were not successful in your last attempt," he stated.

Hellboy marched up to him. Though he was twice as broad as the long-haired Jedi, they were the same height. Both men stood tall, as if they were competing to claim the high ground.

"And what do you know about it?"

"That you were attempting to return us, and you accidentally brought Merlin here instead," Jinn stated. They both looked at Merlin and young Obi-Wan Kenobi, now standing together. Kenobi was taller, more filled out than the young wizard, but they both stared back with clean-shaven innocence. Liz thought they looked too cute standing together like that.

"Perhaps you should rethink your strategy," Jinn suggested, still holding up the shiny amulet, the chain dangling from it and clinking as he turned it in his fingers.

"Yeah," Hellboy sneered. "And just what do you know about it?"

"It is merely a suggestion," Jinn conceded without changing his posture at all.

Hellboy snatched the amulet back with his left hand. He hung it over the TV set again, centering it on the screen. He stepped back. And then paused. And resumed his confrontation with Jinn.

"Just so you know," Hellboy said, his face close, but Jinn did not pull back, "your movie sucked."

Jinn lifted his brows, his expression unconcerned.

"That stupid little brat is supposed to grow up to be Darth Vader? And Jar Jar - - you pretty much lost everyone with that guy."

"If it was so bad, then why were you watching it last week?" Liz demanded, her bare arms folded over her chest.

Hellboy turned to look at her. And missed the fractional change of interest in Jinn's eyes.

"The fight scenes are still good."

"That's only 'cause you're biased."

"I'm not biased."

"Oh yeah. A guy with red skin and horns and wearing black," Liz answered sarcastically, looking her boyfriend up and down. "Sound a little familiar?"

Hellboy frowned uncertainly before turning back to Jinn. He held up a cautionary finger.

"Don't try to take on Darth Maul. You can't handle him," he warned. Jinn did not answer and, disgusted, Hellboy turned back to the TV set.

"I'm just trying to do you a favor," he added as he took his place before the amulet again.

"I shall be mindful of that," Jinn said quietly, but Hellboy was no longer paying attention to him.

"AAAUURRRRghhaauusshchi-ooooouuggghh-NAAAaauuschi-KUUUUuurrrrAAHHHH."

As soon as the blue dot appeared, Liz knew that it wasn't going to work again. She cringed back, hoping they wouldn't get anything too bad. They all flinched from the enormous flash of light.

"Meb! Meb! Meb! Meb! Meb!"

Three people in street clothes with tall bald heads stood before the TV set. Liz would have thrown up her hands if she hadn't been concerned with the sheet she wore coming off.

"Well, that could have been worse," Hellboy commented.

"What?" Liz demanded. "You brought in more people here, Red!"

"Yeah, . . . . but these guys were on when Saturday Nite Live was funny," he said. The Conehead family had stopped exclaiming, 'Meb!' and now stood tightly together, staring at Hellboy.

"What is this Beldar!" Prymaat Conehead demanded, her voice flat and monotone.

"Mmmmmm, mmmmm, malfunction! Malfunction! We shall no longer procure electronics at Sears!"

"Meb! Meb! Meb!" Prymaat seemed to agree. The three Coneheads looked from the huge demon and woman to the three other people, uncertain of friend or foe. They moved as a group away from all of them.

"Red, call Abe!" Liz burst out, the idea just coming to her.

"Huh?"

"Call Abe. He knows more about magic than you do."

"He does not," Hellboy responded defensively.

"Well at least he reads more about it."

"Well, what can he do?"

Furious, Liz grabbed a can of cat food from the floor and threw it. It bounced off of one of Hellboy's horn stumps.

"Go call Abe!"

He retreated to a phone on a far wall. Cell phones did not work at all in the underground installation.

Looking at their six guests now, she sat down on the bed. Then she sprang back up again when she heard the entry buzzer of the vault door of Hellboy's room. She did not let the agent with the cart of Hellboy's afternoon snack get inside. He took one look her bed sheet and lack of clothes and hastily withdrew from the room. Without seeing what and who were inside.

Liz pushed the cart loaded with cheeseburgers and fries past Hellboy who was yelling on the phone about amulets and TVs.

"Uh, would you like something to eat?" she offered. Jinn shook his head. Kenobi and Merlin looked interested, but did not move forward.

Immediately seven cats emerged and began meowing for some.

"Mmmmmm, nourishment!" Prymaat exclaimed approvingly. Having lost their trepidation, the three Coneheads advanced on the food. Liz backed away, watching the amazing sight of an alien family sucking down Hellboy's meal.

"We will consume mass quantities!" Beldar declared through a mouth full of fries.

'Serves him right if he doesn't get any,' she thought with a glance back at her boyfriend. Then she jumped when a hand touched her bare shoulder. She whirled around and looked up.

"I did not mean to startle you," Jinn apologized. Liz tightened the sheet around herself. "I was hoping you could tell us more about what has happened? Liz?" he asked and then gestured toward the bed. She warily sat down with him on one side, Kenobi on the other. Merlin stood.

"I know this looks weird, but he really, really didn't mean to bring you here. He was just trying to get the cable back. The amulet is supposed to summon things," she explained to her attentive guests.

"It was magic then?" Merlin asked.

"I guess," Liz shrugged. She glanced over at the food cart where the Coneheads were demolishing mass quantities of cheeseburgers and fries and their daughter, Connie, bemoaned in her high monotone the un-coolness of having parents who did not know about Hellboy. Cats darted for the scraps that fell on the floor.

"Anyway," she went on, returning her attention to Merlin and the Jedi. "HB is getting a friend of ours to come down and help fix this. Really," she finished to their skeptical looks.

"Someone who is better at this magic than Hellboy?" Jinn asked.

"Well . . . ," Liz looked away from that penetrating gaze and toward the less intimidating Merlin and Kenobi, "I don't see Abe do a lot of magic himself, but he does all the research for us. And thinks about what he does before he does it."

"Aaaah." Qui-Gon Jinn sounded somewhat satisfied and he patted shoulder. "Then we will wait for his expertise to hopefully solve our problem."

"You mean get us out of here and back to where we're supposed to be?" Merlin asked.

"Yeah," Liz answered. "I liked your movie," she added inanely to the two Jedi Knights, sitting between them on the bed where she and Hellboy had so recently been. . . . . .

She hastily stood. Thankfully, the Jedi stood up, too.

"Sorry about the mess," she apologized.

"Oh, it's quite alright," Kenobi politely reassured her. "We've seen much worse."

Liz wondered what 'worse' could be before remembering the cantina scene in the first Star Wars movie.

"Well, I haven't," Merlin muttered unhappily, apparently trying not to touch anything. "This isn't what I thought a demon's lair would look like."

"Hey!" the demon in residence yelled from the other side of the room. "Where's all the chow?" he demanded of the three overfed Coneheads, happy cats still scrabbling after scraps under them. With a disgusted look Hellboy edged around them.

"Abe's on his way. He's bringing some books and stuff with him," he told them. Then he looked back toward the stripped food cart. "Anybody want something to eat? I can order more food."

"Nothing for me," Merlin said hastily.

"We will be fine, thank-you," Jinn assured.

"Liz?" he asked, looking for an excuse other than his own appetite to call for more food.

"Wait until after we get rid of everybody."

Glaring at the wreckage left behind by the Coneheads, Hellboy unhappily accepted this. "They're a lot funnier on TV," he muttered.

The vault door buzzer sounded. A moment later a tall thin person with amphibian blue, green and whitish skin entered. He wore tight body-hugging black over most of his body. His large liquid eyes blinked at the crowd, and he paused when Connie Conehead told her parents who 'Abe Sapien' was, before going to Hellboy and Liz.

"I see your problem," he said in his elegant, cultured voice.

Liz sighed in relief. "Can you do anything?"

"I'm not sure. Technically, we should be able to simply reverse the summoning."

"Yeah, I tried that," Hellboy complained. "The crowd just keeps getting bigger."

"He did not appear to significantly modify his actions the two times we witnessed his attempts," Jinn said.

"Oh. I'm sure we can come up with something." Abe extended a slender webbed hand to Qui-Gon Jinn. "I am Abe Sapiens. I'm sorry, I don't know who you are. I am not as well versed in popular culture as Hellboy here."

"We are already aware of you," Jinn responded, equally polite.

"Really?"

"You are an acquaintance of Hellboy. The brains of the operation, I believe."

"You help Hellboy here with demonic intrusions on your world," Kenobi added helpfully. "You and the rest of your team." With a smile, he nodded deferentially toward a surprised Liz.

"Really? How could you possibly know that?" Abe asked.

"Your holo-action drama is very popular," Jinn said.

"Do you watch it then?"

"No," Jinn answered. "But there are a lot of advertisements for it near the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. It's very hard to miss."

"Wait a minute," Hellboy asked, finally catching up to where the conversation was going. "You mean that in your world we're just a TV show?"

"Yes," Jinn answered, smiling.

"Now this is interesting." Abe put a long finger on his chin thoughtfully. "You," he said to Merlin, "I don't know who you are, either, but do you know who we are?"

"He is Anung Un Rama . . . . the Beast of the Apocalypse. I was reading about him. But. . . . . the Book of Demons didn't say he had a girlfriend."

"I see," Abe answered, nodding his head and then turning to the family of aliens who were examining the various electronics and photos along one wall. "Excuse me. You are . . . . ?"

"I am Beldar! These are my family units, Prymaat and Connie!" he announced in his too loud monotone. "Connie has informed us that you are celebrities from a fictional animated television program!"

"Oh, please, do not embarrass me!" Connie called out.

"Mind your father, young one!" Prymaat snapped.

"Hmmph. A cartoon," Hellboy scoffed. "I hope the art is better than the comic books. But what has this got to do with anything?"

"Oh everything. It means that the summoning is essentially two-way. While they are fictional characters to us. We are also fictional characters to them," Abe explained.

"So, what do we do about it?" Liz asked, hugging the sheet to herself.

"Hmmm." Abe looked around. "Is that the amulet?" he asked, pointing at the nine-pointed star hanging over the TV set.

"Yes," Liz answered.

Abe stepped up to it, peered at it from one side, then the other. He touched it, lifted it up and turned it around. He then carefully laid it back with the reverse side showing.

"There," Abe announced. "That should do it. Try it again."

"What?" Liz asked, astonished and feeling cheated. "Is that it?"

"Mmm." Abe nodded. "That is the usual way it's handled for reversible summons. Try it now," he said again.

They all stepped back. Hellboy took his position before the TV set.

"AAAUURRRghhaauusshchiII-ooouuggghh-NAAAAAaauuschi-KUUuurrrrrrrrrAAAHHHH."

SNAP!!!

The blue flash caught them all off guard, but when they, blinking, lifted their heads again, the Coneheads were gone, a little puff of smoke left behind in their places.

"There. You see?" Abe said with a smile in his voice, if not on his thin lips.

"Wait a minute," Merlin objected, approaching the TV set for the first time. "How do we know what happened to them? They just disappeared."

"Mmmmm." Abe looked thoughtfull.

Liz looked at Merlin and the Jedi. They looked back at her and Abe.

Hellboy stepped forward and clicked on the TV set.

The silvery image showed the Conehead family in their living room. Connie monotonically moaned about not getting Hellboy's autograph before the sparkling picture faded into ordinary solid blank-screen blue.

"They look OK to me," Hellboy announced, stepping back again. Merlin warily nodded.

"I'd like to get back to Camelot now, please. This place smells like cat piss," he complained.

"AAAUURRghhausshchiii-ooough-NAAAAaauuschi-KuurrrrrrrrrrrAAAHHHHHH," Hellboy snarled.

SNAP!!!

A very relieved looking Merlin now stood in a cluttered medieval room on the TV screen. He spread his arms out and shouted before the image faded to solid blue again.

Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi nodded to each other and stepped forward.

"It was a pleasure to meet your all," Jinn told them. Hellboy grunted and took a deep breath, but stopped when the older Jedi raised a finger.

"I just thought that you should know that in the future. . . . .you should probably stay away from caves. Just to be safe." Behind the older man, Obi-Wan Kenobi's face contorted with mirth.

"What? What is that supposed to mean?" Hellboy demanded suspiciously.

"I'm just trying to do you a favor," Jinn assured him.

Liz punched her boyfriend in the side.

"Get on with it, Red."

He took another deep breath again.

"Aaaaauurrrrghhausshchi-OOOough-NAAAAaauuschi-KuurrrrrrAAAHHHH."

When they looked back after the flash, they saw the two Jedi standing in an immense stately hall, massive pillars receding in the distance. Smiling, they bowed toward them and walked away. The image faded to blue. Hellboy turned the TV set off.

"Hmph. Thanks for your help, Abe." Hellboy took the amulet off the TV and gave it to his friend.

"Thanks, Abe," Liz added with a sigh.

"Glad to be of service," Abe replied.

Hellboy looked around at the ruined shelves and the empty food cart where a few cats sat licking their lips.

"Hey, Liz. How about something to eat?"

"Sure," she answered with little enthusiasm, leaning on him. "Whatever you want, Red."

"How about ice cream?"

Liz burst into flames and punched him again.

***!!*!!* END *!!*!!***

* * *

This story is a test of a twitterable format. It was first posted on tf.n: 18-July-2009

**Disclaimer: **All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.


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